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Have you ever seen a Ganesha with a cell phone in one hand and an umbrella in the other? Or a Ganesha with a traditional Afghan scarf? Meet P. Shekar, a 49-year-old who holds The Limca Book of Indian Records for having the largest private collection of Ganesh idols (Statue) Shekar, an employee of State Bank of India says, he started his collection 36 years ago. A chance trip to Shirdi brought him face-to-face with a small Plaster-of-Paris Ganesha idol. Priced a measly 50 paise, the idol is the first of his collection of over 11,000 idols, 13,000 photographs, 1,094 posters and 157 key chains apart from over 100 audio and video recordings of the elephant God.
“Since childhood I have found the form of lord Ganesha very inspiring and I used to sketch and paint him. Soon I started collecting his idols,” he says. Mr. Shekar boasts of having sculptures and idols from over 32 countries such as Afghanistan, Japan, China, Egypt, Nepal, Pakistan, Turkey, etc. “I either order them online or pick them up from different art exhibitions held in the city and in the country,” he says.
So vast is his collection, that he has dedicated an entire room for the collection. “I am constructing another room to accommodate my collection,” he says. The collection comprises all the known 32 forms from Bala Ganapati to Sankatahara Ganapati, including some exquisite tribal idols from Chhattisgarh and Orissa. “No two Ganesha idols are similar,” claims Mr. Shekar. While his smallest Ganesha is just half-an-inch, made of gold, the biggest is 4 ft.paper mache one from Pondicherry and the heaviest is a ‘pancha loha, pancha mukha’ idol weighing 50 kg. “I have idols made of all metals, precious stones and different types of wood except iron and diamond,” he says.
His thirst for collecting idols seems insatiable as he aims to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. “I want to collect at least over a lakh idols and my children will continue adding to it,” he says. A book on Ganesha and Pancha Mukha Ganesh temple in the city are next on the agenda, he says.
